Appeal No. 2001-0857 Page 4
Application No. 09/012,166
On page 8 of the brief, appellants state “[f]aced with
the problem of how to combine good drying rate with good
potlife, a skilled person reading Liebl would not be
motivated by De Santis to use a mercapto functional
compound, especially since … “[t]he De Santis primer
composition does not comprise a mercapto functional
compound, but the reaction product of a mercapto functional
compound and an isocyanate.”
On page 9 of the brief, appellants state that
obviousness cannot be established merely by locating
references which describe various aspects of appellants’
invention without also providing evidence of the motivating
force which would impel one skilled in the art to do what
the patent appellant has done. Appellants submit that it is
clear that the applied references, taken as a whole, fail to
provide such motivating force and that such force is only
provided by appellants’ disclosure.
We agree with appellants’ position as summarized above.
That is, we have carefully reviewed Liebl and De Santis and
determine that hindsight has played a role in the examiner’s
rejection, in view of the disparate systems and teachings of
Liebl and De Santis, demonstrated below.
Liebl concerns a process for the preparation of
coatings by reacting polyurethane single component systems
and water, wherein at least one polyurethane single
component system is mixed with steam and sprayed. See
column 2, lines 31 through 35.
The polyurethane single component system for forming
the coatings is comprised of conventional polyurethane
prepolymers. The products are prepared by reacting excess
quantities of organic polyisocyanates, with higher molecular
weight polyols or mixtures of higher molecular weight
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